(remixed from "Writing Fiction," originally published in Babel Tower Notice Board)
Writing fiction is like trying to figure out who ate the salami by eating more salami.
Writing fiction is like spending fifty thousand dollars on an asscrack tattoo.
Writing fiction is like making a snowman with anatomically correct genitalia, then feigning disgust when people ask if you plan to fuck it.
It’s like experiencing real grief when your attempt to fuck the snowman makes it melt.
Writing is the artform almost anyone can master.
Fiction is a concept even babies understand.
So writing fiction should be properly understood as an effort to embrace anonymity, and confusion on this point is the reason so many writers want to die.
Writing fiction is like going pro in being potty trained.
Writing fiction is like sending your kids away to orphanages with the expectation they will track you down later in life to say, Dad, you’re beautiful.
I don’t know exactly what Roberto Bolaño meant when he wrote, The killer sleeps as the victim photographs him. But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s about writing fiction.
Writing fiction is like reading fiction, except you do all the work instead of half. Therefore, approximately half of these aphorisms should apply to reading fiction too.
Writing fiction is like believing you invented foreplay.
It’s like planting an apple seed that produces a tombstone.
It’s like turning to your tombstone for something to eat.
This story was originally published, in a lit journal that is now defunct, as nothing more than the following short sentence: "Writing fiction is like trying to figure out who ate the salami by eating salami."
